TEXAN OF THE YEAR 2013

A Texan (or Texans) who has had uncommon impact – either positive or negative – over the past year. Check back tomorrow to see our next finalist leading up to this year’s Texan of the Year on Dec. 29.

Dec. 18, 2013

Texan of the Year finalist

TODAY’S FINALIST: MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY

His breakthrough role in Dallas Buyers Club created an Urban Cowboy for the new millennium: raw, complicated, cantankerous and pure Texan.

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atthew McConaughey made his big-screen debut in 1993 as a good-looking, good-natured stoner Texan in Dazed and Confused, and then progressed to shirtless prominence as a heartthrob hunk, cementing a reputation as a Hollywood lightweight. Highly successful and bankable, certainly, but still a lightweight. More “movie star” than serious actor.

That is, until this year’s Dallas Buyers Club.

Embracing a character that’s neither good-looking nor good-natured, and shedding well-toned weight for the role, McConaughey is bathing in a shower of accolades and being mentioned as Oscar-worthy. His performance has earned him best-actor nominations by the Screen Actors Guild and for a Golden Globe award. GQ magazine named him Leading Man of the Year.

In a GQ interview, McConaughey, 44, addressed perceptions of him — “Outdoors, shirtless on the beach, does a lot of rom-coms, girlfriend loves him, good-looking. It’s like he rolls out of bed and shows up and makes it look easy” — and his transformation from heartthrob to heavyweight.

“My relationship with acting was fine,” said McConaughey. “But like in any relationship, you need to shake things up. It didn’t mean what we’d been doing was less than. I just wanted a charge. Like, ‘Let’s throw a spark into this.’”

That spark erupted in his breakthrough role for Dallas Buyers Club.

“McConaughey famously lost 40 pounds to play Ron Woodroof, the Dallas electrician who morphed from redneck homophobe to AIDS drug distributor and advocate,” wrote this newspaper’s film critic Chris Vognar. “But it’s his wily energy and bottomless empathy that really shine through. McConaughey is currently the leading light of the Texas film world, a genuine movie star whose talent burns way beyond skin deep.”

McConaughey’s Woodroof is an Urban Cowboy for the new millennium: raw, complicated, cantankerous, proud, full of tics and stereotypes, at times petty and other times noble. And always bucking the bureaucracy. In other words, a character we’ve all known in real life. In other words, a portrayal that earns an actor finalist recognition as Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year.

It’s a role for our times, and one that has changed the perception of McConaughey. After a career filled with light fare — romantic comedies and movies that made full use of his box-office draw (see: Surfer Dude and Magic Mike) — McConaughey offered hints at what was to come in last year’s Mud. In that movie, he played a disheveled killer on the run who enlists a couple of teenage boys to reunite him with a lost love.

But his Mud persona merely teased. McConaughey’s Woodroof was a revelation — and a transformation pulled off without flashes of skin or charm.

GQ noted that McConaughey carries a crumpled piece of paper, only recently rediscovered in some old pants, that reads: “I wish I enjoyed watching my movies as much as I enjoy making them.” He enjoyed Dallas Buyers Club.

McConaughey also has become the face and voice of modern Texas itself: self-assured, independent, laid-back. Good hair. Soothing voice. You might recognize his soft drawl, dripping with mischief, peddling power on TV and radio for Reliant Energy.

McConaughey is the very embodiment of this state. And the role suits him to a T.